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Already one of the most iconic and atmospheric first-person shooters around, Metro has received some post-release polish that should intrigue existing fans while attracting some new ones. Metro Redux features improved versions of both Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light, including completely remastered visuals such as advanced lighting, dynamic weather, more detailed characters with improved animation, more dynamic destruction and improved smoke, as well as fire and particle effects.

Metro 2033 Redux shows the biggest visual changes as it has been rebuilt using the latest 4A Engine, bringing all the graphical and gameplay improvements from Last Light to 2033. The gameplay experience is also said to have been revamped with advanced enemy AI, better combat and stealth mechanics, superior weapon handling and responsiveness, intuitive controls, plus signature features from Last Light such as the 'mask wipe' mechanic, weapon customization, and silent kills and takedowns.

You might think updating the much more recently released Metro: Last Light would be a little pointless, but 4A Games has put a lot of time and effort into doing just that. The game has been given a graphical facelift and gameplay improvements that carry across both titles, including new melee animations, and the fan-requested 'Check Watch' and 'Check Inventory' features. It also includes all previously released Season Pass add-on content featuring a further 10 hours of single-player gameplay.

Apparently, players are divided between those who preferred the survival horror-oriented gameplay of Metro 2033 and those who enjoyed the more action-oriented gameplay of Metro: Last Light, so 4A Games will allow each group of gamers to play both titles using the style they prefer with the introduction of two unique 'play styles': 'Survival' has limited resources, deadlier enemy AI and slower reload speeds while 'Spartan' offers a powerful set of combat skills and more plentiful resources.

I haven't spent much time playing the Metro series but I've benchmarked my share of GPUs with both titles and while I'm looking forward to seeing Metro 2033's enhancements, I'm probably more curious to see how much 4A Games can outdo itself on Last Light considering it only arrived last year and was already one of the most visually pleasing shooters -- not to mention that the Redux versions are going for $25 each, which could be especially hard to justify for folks who already own Last Light.

Testing Methodology

We used the latest AMD and Nvidia drivers for testing and Nvidia specifies that its GeForce 340.52 driver is designed for Metro Redux. We tested 22 DirectX 11 graphics card configurations from both companies covering all price ranges. Our test rig was outfitted with the Intel Core i7-4960X to remove CPU bottlenecks that could influence high-end GPU scores.

Although we usually rely on Fraps to record up to 90 seconds of gameplay for our benchmark data, 4A has provided us with an easier method that is also more accurate. The Metro Redux rolling demo runs for almost 3 minutes and plays out a number of very detailed battle scenes. The benchmark tool allowed us to create our own graphics quality pre-sets. In total we went with seven major tests covering four resolutions using high quality settings.

We tested Metro Redux at four desktop display resolutions: 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 using DX11. Since we tested a range of visual pre-sets with Metro: Last Light we have just maxed out the Redux version.